Clash of the Champions V: St. Valentine's Massacre — A Two-Hour Commercial with One Great Fight

The Midnight Express are popular enough to drag this beyond its ingredients. Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane work crisp babyface offense, Jim Cornette gives the crowd someone to rally behind, and the Russian Assassins provide size without much imagination. The problem is repetition. Bearhugs and slow isolation stretches eat up too much of thirteen minutes, and the dark arena presentation makes the match feel flatter than the crowd reaction suggests. Eaton's athletic bursts help, but this is the sort of matchup that should have been a brisk momentum builder rather than a prolonged opening statement.

Seventeen minutes is an extraordinary amount of television for a match whose central purpose is establishing Butch Reed as a serious heel. Steven Casey sells and moves well enough, but every comeback extends a contest that should be growing more one-sided. Reed's offense has weight and the finish is clean, yet the route there is filled with holding patterns, cautious pacing and little escalation. The audience never receives a convincing reason to believe Casey is about to win, so the length works against the premise. A seven-minute version could have made Reed look dangerous; this version makes him look busy.

The Blackmailer is Jack Victory under a mask, and the disguise does not magically create a compelling twelve-minute opponent for Lex Luger. Luger gets the expected power spots and carries himself like a star, but the match has no meaningful mystery once the bell rings. Hiro Matsuda's presence adds some storyline texture, while the masked gimmick gives commentary something to discuss, yet the wrestling itself settles into generic heel control and predictable babyface recovery. The superplex finish is decisive, but nearly thirteen minutes of television have passed without materially changing Luger's position or the audience's understanding of him.

This is the closest the card comes to a satisfying standalone wrestling match. The Fantastics provide speed and sympathetic selling, while Mike Rotunda and Steve Williams finally have opponents who can make the Varsity Club's strength and control feel purposeful. The champions cut off the ring, force Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers to chase openings, and give the audience a clear tactical story. It never reaches the level suggested by the talent involved, but it has structure, stakes and enough urgency to distinguish itself from the surrounding filler. On this show, basic competence with a championship attached feels almost luxurious.

The match is mostly a platform, and everyone involved seems to know it. Ricky Steamboat works with his usual speed and polish, Bob Bradley gives him a straightforward body to beat, and the result is never in doubt. That would be perfectly acceptable for six minutes if the segment ended at the bell. Instead, the reason to remember it is the larger Ric Flair program surrounding the show. Steamboat's presence matters because Chi-Town Rumble is days away, not because Bradley offers a meaningful obstacle. The wrestling is clean enough, but WrestleFile grades the match rather than the historical aura around the wrestler.

At under five minutes, this at least understands its assignment. Rick Steiner is rising, Rip Morgan is there to give him a physical opponent, and the match moves directly toward a decisive result without pretending to be more important than it is. Steiner's explosiveness and awkward charisma come through, but there is not enough time or narrative depth to produce much beyond a compact television win. On a card overloaded with matches that run too long, brevity becomes one of this bout's best qualities. That is faint praise, but it is also a relief.

The advertised challengers have been locked backstage, so the Varsity Club steps into the main event and the match immediately feels like an angle waiting for its cue. The Road Warriors and Tenryu bring enough physical credibility to make the opening exchanges energetic, and the Varsity Club's targeting of Animal gives the six minutes a simple story. Then Sting, Michael Hayes and Junkyard Dog finally escape, rush the ring and trigger the double disqualification. As television promotion, the chaos creates movement toward Chi-Town Rumble. As a championship main event, it is a bait-and-switch with no real payoff between the ropes.